


Chante, rossignol, chante, toi qui as le cœur gai

by pearypie



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: And trains Lizzy, Angst and Humor, Basically the Undertaker uses this as an opportunity for some grandfather-granddaughter bonding, Dark Comedy, Family Drama, Family Feels, Gen, Reaper!Lizzy AU, Reapers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 14:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10901352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearypie/pseuds/pearypie
Summary: Inspired by Tumblr's Reaper!Lizzy AU.In a desperate bid to save the boy she loves best, Lizzy commits the ultimate sacrifice...only to awaken in a strange, dark workshop with a curious, silver haired mortician as her guide to the supernatural world.(He also happens to be her grandfather but really, that's a conversation for another time.)





	Chante, rossignol, chante, toi qui as le cœur gai

She slits her throat and a necklace of rubies appear, decorating her fair, pale neck with glimmering crimson beads of blood that drip down her collarbone, pooling in between the valley of her breasts. She’s grateful to have cut into her carotid artery on her first try; all those hours pouring over Madam Red’s medical textbooks _had_ been useful—time well spent. (Though now, she has all the time in the world.)

Lizzy fights against death for a few seconds more, wanting to take in the high vaulted ceiling of her bedroom, the pretty light pink walls and white canopied bed with gardenias covering the headboard. She takes it all in for as long as her body will allow before exhaustion—a strange, physical weariness she’s never felt before—consumes her delicate form and she falls forward, blood smearing against the honey satinwood of the newly polished floor. Her head hits the ground but she feels no pain; her chest is wet and warm, the blood feels like soft bathwater against her fingertips and she presses her palm against her heart.

She once used to thrum with life and energy, a whirlwind of excitability of vivacious charm; now, as she lays on her side, one arm splayed above her head, she only feels the faint, distant beats of a dying, superfluous organ.

She opens her eyes but the world is dim—as if everything has been deprived of all color and the ceiling has become her focal point. A faint pinprick of memory—her crystal chandelier, the one with rosy cheeked cherubs molded from cool gold—hangs above her but its proportions have been distorted and the whole picture has grown fuzzy.

Her breathing is shallow and she can no longer feel the limbs of her body—can no longer move her wrist and fingers. She is lying here, immobilized, the scent of blood and blossoms in the air. 

But it will be worth it, she thinks, when it is all over. When she awakens strong and immortal, a Reaper for all to see.

She will protect Ciel, one way or another, and if it means exchanging her life for his, then—

It is an all too easy sacrifice.

_Ciel._

 

* * *

 

She awakens in a dark, cobwebbed room hardly big enough for one person—or perhaps it’d been designed this way on purpose. The bed she’s lying in reminds her of a child’s cot, with a little nightstand and two weathered books as its only companions. Dust and age have saturated the blue printed covers and she can barely make out the faint, almost illegible print.

 _The Nutcracker and the Mouse King_ is the first book—perhaps a first edition, for Lizzy has never seen the cover so beautifully done. The pinks and whites have now lightened to a paper thin memory of color but the lines are still visible, outlining the slim rosette form of sweet Marie and the tall, stately nutcracker in his red military jacket. It is also, she smiles softly, her favorite children’s book.

Beneath that is a copy of _Grimm’s Fairy Tales_ but this one has clearly been read—over and over again. The spine is cracked and she can spy the individual pages clinging desperately to the worn black thread; the pages have been dog-eared and folded, as if someone had bookmarked these passages to read later—a bedtime story for another night. 

Rising from the stiff, cloistered bunk Lizzy struggles to stand and finds that while the ceiling—an old wooden structure, perhaps designed during the Tudor years—is low, she can still stand comfortably, without hitting her head or lurching forward to avoid the dangling cobwebs and small black spiders.

To her left there is a small, dirtied window with several glass jars and containers of a putrified, yellow liquid. One held a heart, the other an unseeing white sphere, and the two containers were too murky to make out much other than a few odd shapes. Outside, London’s cloudy grey sky was familiar and soothing but—

Lizzy gasped, hands reaching to wrap around her neck—to feel the blood and hastily cut flesh but nothing was there. Nothing but smooth, soft skin.

“Ah, you’re _awake_ now, aren’t you?” A low, amused voice calls out. It sounds like it's coming from above and Lizzy wonders if she's been summoned before some strange, celestial court to pay penance. 

And really—when did her eyesight become so poor?

“Sorry love but you’ll be needing _these_ from now on.” The voice chuckles; and out of nowhere, a pair of _something_ falls into her hands. Cautiously (perhaps _too_ cautiously) Lizzy brings the object near, though it's not until she's moved it a few inches from her face that she's able to tell what it is. 

A pair of reading glasses. She frowns. 

“Thank you kindly, dear sir, but I don’t believe these will be necessary.” She calls out, wondering if death has deprived her of all sanity. Talking to a mysterious voice in a small, dark room. 

Was she now insane?

Has she gone absolute mad?

“Oh, but I believe they are.” The voice returns, sounding perfectly cheerful—as if strange girls who'd cut their throats was a common sight for him. “Come now, love—look around. Where am I?”

Lizzy hears a creak and a shift (this building really was _quite_ old) but feels a sliver of white hot frustration when she is unable to make out his face, shape, or figure in the shadowy black darkness. “If you would step into the light please—“

“Why should I? I’m right behind you.”

Lizzy whirls around and almost shrieks when she sees him—the strange, white-haired mortician with the wide, toothy grin and long, black edged nails.

Her heart is pounding like a hummingbird in her chest (or was it? What on earth was even happening? Oh, mother was _right._ She was far too impulsive for her own good sometimes) and Lizzy feels a slight wave of immediate panic though, oddly enough, she felt no _real_ sense of danger. Only confusion, blindness, and an overwhelming urge to put these eyeglasses on.

“Mr. Undertaker sir.” She greets and gives him a small curtsey. Dead or not, courtesy was most important. (Mother, Lizzy thinks, would be quite proud to know that even in death, she was still behaving like a lady should.)

The mortician laughs, waving a sleeve covered hand in front of her—as if saying, _no, no, dear girl! No formalities!_

“Care for a cup?” He asks, producing a… _beaker_ of tea (or was it tea?) from behind his back. Moving even closer (almost indecently so—not that he seemed to care much for propriety) the Undertaker giggles, in a strange high-pitched stream of laughter, at her curious expression. “It’s _oolong._ ” He whispers loudly, as if confiding in her a great, mysterious secret that no one else could ever know.

Yet his grin is so wide and his words so serious and—honestly, here she is in some cramped little room with a cup (or pardon, _beaker_ ) of hot tea being handed to her by a strange man who appeared to have a permanent smile fixed to his face. And really, she decides, if one couldn’t laugh at a situation such as this then madness was the only option.

So Lizzy laughs, lightly at first and then genuinely, nose crinkling and shoulders shaking as she accepted his beaker of tea with a smile and a thank you, polite as ever. “I must be dreaming,” she whispers between giggles, “but I had no idea my imagination was so vivid—or so strange.”

“Oh, you aren’t dreaming dearie.” The Undertaker (yes, she remembers, that was his title) sways from side to side, voice almost tender as one long black fingernail comes up to stroke her cheek. “You poor thing, cold as death.”

Lizzy laughs again.

He grins. “And you’ve got your grandmother’s sense of humor.”

At the mention of Grandmama Claudia, Lizzy perks up. “You knew Grandmama?”

“Is that what you call her?” The Undertaker rubs his sleeved hands together, like a gleeful child whose just learned a most valuable secret. “Oh- _ho,_ it _is_ rather proper of you, isn’t it?”

“I _am_ a lady, dear sir.”

(But Lizzy feels no real insult—how can she when this strange old mortician is being so kind and offering her tea and ignoring the fact that she’s gone completely and utterly mad?)

“Ay, I don’t dispute that.” He agrees cheerfully. “But death, dear girl, requires no book of etiquette.”

“So I've truly died.” Lizzy presses her hands around the steaming hot beaker. “How strange. I’d always imagined death to be…lighter.” 

“Well you are in my workshop dearie. I’m a bit of an odd fish myself—antiseptic walls and hourly doses of paperwork have never really appealed to me—if you can _imagine_ that.” He ribs, poking Lizzy’s cheek as he does so. “See, you’re still on the human plane love—I got you before the Reapers did and oh- _ho,_ what a trip it was! You’re _quite_ the little scandal in this neck of the woods.” 

Lizzy frowns, perturbed and very worried that she could've caused  _any_ dispute—let alone one so strange! She opens her mouth to speak but is cut off by the memory of her parents—of her dear, grieving brother and solemn, stern mother and dear, wonderful father—and Lizzy feels abject horror because  _she's left them all behind._

Oh god,  _oh god, oh god, oh god—_ what has she done? How could she have been so  _stupid?_ Should she have left a longer letter? One that explained in greater detail why she'd done what she did? Did they know? But of course they didn't! But did they know how much she still loved them, even in death, and how dearly she wanted to remain by their side until they drew their last breath and—oh she was such a wicked, wretched daughter! How could she have done this?

Tears sting at her eyes, her throat begins to close, and—

“Oh,” Lizzy chokes out, “I’m very sorry for that." An overwhelming wave of guilt crashes into her, expelling the air from her lungs and hurting her so badly she feels as if she's been stabbed right through the heart. "I'm sorry," she tries again, "for acting so foolishly but you see, Mr. Undertaker sir, I am in very dire straits right now. I love someone very much but I…I can’t save him and please, I need some help so I thought—I _heard_ —that…that to _die_ by my own hand would give me power and please, you mustn’t think me greedy or shameful for I have no wish or desire to conquer any foreign lands or villages. I only want to save the boy I love best.” She says this in one frenzied, hiccuped sentence because the tears are rolling down her cheeks and falling to her tea and—“I’m sorry,” she cries, lower lip trembling because _goodness,_ she simply can’t _stop,_ “I'm...I’m afraid I’ve ruined your oolong.”

And really, this just makes everything else so much more dreadful. She's ruined a perfectly good cup of tea that he prepared for her and he can't possibly have any more clean beakers and she's ruined her tea _and_ —and a sob escapes her lips, and then another and another until she's crying continuously, unable to stop, not even noticing how the Undertaker has brought one shapeless sleeve over her shoulders, hugging her close.

“You’ve got a way with words, lovey.” He chuckles, the other sleeve coming to wipe away her tears. “Ruined my _oolong,_ now isn’t that _funny._ ” He chuckles but his veiled eyes are soft, tender with sympathy and care and _oh,_ while the earl may _look_ like his Claudia, it’s sweet little Lizzy—with her lion heart and all encompassing passion—who _is_ Claudia.

All her virtues and goodness, encapsulated in the granddaughter she never had the chance to meet. “Poor girl,” Undertaker continues, “poor, dear girl. So desperate to save the one you love best…a distant prayer, yes, but you cling onto it, kneeling at the foot of your bed every night, begging for some starlit miracle. Oh, poor child,” his voice continues, soothing and familiar—with a gentle French accent coming to play, “you do wish to save him, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, yes I—“ she tries to speak but her words are tied, jumbled together, and utterly incoherent as she presses her face into the Undertaker’s robes, trying so hard to calm herself though frenzied emotion.  

The Undertaker smiles, half-pity, half-joy. He holds onto her, his dear, sweet granddaughter, and relishes in her orange blossom warmth. It is the first time he has embraced any _one_ of his grandchildren, the first time they have not shied away from him in mistrust or anger—or have ignored him, ignorant that their grandfather stands there, so full of longing for _family_ and _memory_ and  _home._

He failed his son, his precious, only son, who died so wretchedly. He failed to protect his grandson, thirteen and blue and bound to hell. He has not seen his strong, capable daughter since she was a year and a half old; was not there when she married—couldn't walk her down the aisle. 

But now— _now_ providence has come, giving him a  _second chance_ to begin regaining the family that was lost to him the moment Claudia died. 

So he holds his poor, dear granddaughter close and thinks that the butler—what a funny little demon!—has helped him _greatly._ Oh, he never wished to meet his and Claudia’s grandchild under such unseemly and vile circumstances but _here she is._ A _Reaper,_ eternal and immortal; age will not touch her and death can no longer hold her. She is his _family_ —his granddaughter—and she is now immortal, _just like him._

“Come now, come now,” he shushes, one sleeved hand coming to tuck a golden curl behind her ear, “worry no more, lovely, worry no more.” He can feel the exhaustion seeping into her bones and takes the beaker of tea from her, placing it on the little nightstand.

“ _Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, jamais je ne t’oublierai,_ ” the Undertaker sings, soft and low, the lullaby tranquil and sweet—as clear and familiar as when he composed it some two hundred years ago. In his arms, the poor girl sleeps, breathing deep and even as tear stains mar her cheeks.

For now, he will remain awake tonight—and all other nights—guarding his granddaughter against all harm. From the hands of the Reapers to the temptations of the demon. She is a piece of Claudia made immortal and she is his _family._

The Undertaker lowers her into the cot, one arm coming to sweep the dust from the children’s books and the other to wipe away the last of her tears.

_Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, jamais je ne t’oublierai…_

**Author's Note:**

> \- ‘The Nutcracker and the Mouse King’ written in 1816. Headcanon: the book was a Phantomhive family heirloom and the tale was read every Christmas to each generation of Phantomhive children. Growing up, this was Claudia’s favorite story and once Vincent was born, Claudia snuck away to the Undertaker’s workshop so they could both read the story to baby Vincent. Since then, the Undertaker has kept the book as both a memory of Claudia and the family they almost built. 
> 
> \- Lullaby is ‘À la claire fontaine’ written in 1604 and yes—I did headcanon Undertaker being the one to compose it all those centuries ago. 
> 
> \- "Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, jamais je ne t’oublierai" translates to: I've loved you for so long, I will never forget you
> 
> \- Title 'Chante, rossignol, chante, toi qui as le cœur gai' translates to: Sing, nightingale, sing, you of the joyous heart
> 
> A/N: Reaper!Lizzy being taken care of by granddaddy Undertaker. (She’s literally gonna be the strongest shinigami the world has ever seen lol) 
> 
> I’m so sorry for this sudden influx of fics but it’s summer and I just really miss Undertaker, okay?! LOL


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